king and country

Talitha de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 08:52 AM

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Set whenever he'd be at home. XD Or would be coming home; he could come up behind her instead. Reply whenever you're ready. <3 Backdated to the 12th. WHY AM I USING ANOTHER LYKOI TABLE?

What had she been thinking? Frail arms clutching at the three complaining bodies of her offspring, she chastised herself for believing that Cotl would have been any sort of considerate of her position. He'd warned her. He'd warned her, but she had tried anyways. What an idiot she'd been. It was clear there was no place for them in Cotl's world, but where could she leave them if he would accept them? More importantly, where could she leave him? The dark, spotted pup was the real problem, already twice the size of his younger siblings and so similar to the wolfdog she knew to be his father. Cernunnos didn't belong. Like Caillen, he would never be accepted in her world. She couldn't take him to Ezekiel, fearing that her brother would punish her for the sins committed before his birth by taking the one child who had a place in her heart away from her.

Without Ezekiel, there was only one person she could trust with the matter. Her feet carried her from the mansion, around the walls with quick steps as the blood of her doggish son seeped into her fur — it'd been a necessary evil, harming him as she had. The guest house was her destination. As expected, the petite frame of Enkiel's quiet patient was settled just outside the doorway, smoking the long pipe she often smoked with lazy eyes that focused on nothing particular. Talitha didn't give Sa'adat a chance to say no — she thrust the coyote pups into the jackayote's arms without explanation, and though the weaver tried to find out why, she ignored her curiosity. Carrying Cernunnos by the loose fur at the scruff of his neck, small body squirming in discomfort, she entered the building and rapped on the door that belonged to her father.

"Daddy? Daddy, I need you, are you home?" He had to be. She couldn't go hunting for him with a bleeding, unloved child in her hand. It had to be dealt with sooner, not later. Cern had to go away.

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Gabriel de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 02:53 PM

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Sometimes, when he slept, he dreamt of the landslide. It had been such a sudden thing, but in the dream it had felt like eternity. He recalled the earth giving out from under his feet, recalled Marlowe’s startled cry, and then tumbled with the soft ground under his feet pulling him down. In these dreams he twitched and moaned like a dog, for they so often brought up memories of the pain and the loss. This one was different. It was Marlowe, not Ezekiel, who came to the wolf-thing and began prodding him with frantic pecks. Up! You have much to do! Up, Gabriel!

The piercing raps against his skull became less ethereal as he woke. Someone was at his door. The hybrid, still in the only form he showed in the clan. If he allowed them to see he was capable of anything more, his decision to step down would destroy the fragile leadership he had allowed to step in for him. Ezekiel would turn it over in a second. Gabriel pushed himself up. Talitha sounded frantic. He crossed to the door in three paces, and yanked open the rope-pull he used to operate the device.

“Talitha what—“ Blood. He smelt blood and stared, startled, at the child in her hand. His eyes widened and for an instant, he was shocked. Then fury filled his face and set his fur on end. “You put him down now,” he growled, unsure of whom had done such a thing (and believing, even now, his daughter was capable of it).

Talitha de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 03:09 PM

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Cernunnos squirmed and complained as his mother handled him in a way that caused the spotted, merle boy to be uncomfortable. It was more interaction than he'd received in the entire course of his eighteen days of life, but it was not something that pleased the pale-eyed boy. Pain was not something he'd experienced, yet all at once he was thrust into it under the bloody claws of the blurry orange man and then again under the small knife his mother had used to mark him as her child. With so much going on, he wasn't surprised at the growling voice of another.

Talitha waited patiently, trying to keep the bleeding pup from splattering the floor red and causing a mess that she'd have to clean up; it was selfish of her, but she had no desire to linger there after the boy was passed off to Gabriel and Enkiel and the small jackal woman who resided in the building with them. The moments of silence made her wonder if her father wasn't home, but sure enough he opened the door and started to speak. His growling voice startled the princess, who stiffly set the little boy down before backing away anxiously. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I can't do this, I can't. I can't." Babbling words spouted forth in the woman's tone of distress, emotions that she was not unfamiliar with. The large, doggish boy tried to scramble to his feet, as curiosity swelled even through the pain he experienced to explore this new place and this new person.

Fragile-minded Talitha gazed at her father with eyes full of apology and fear, hands stained with the blood of her dead lover's son and body trembling as she waited for instructions. "It's my fault, I shouldn't have taken them to Cotl, I shouldn't have shown him what I'd done. I'm sorry, I'm sorry." Her legs gave out and the russet woman tumbled to the floor, hugging her own shoulders tightly with frail hands as something internal crushed what little spirit she still kept.

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Gabriel de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 03:21 PM

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As soon as she dropped the boy, the former Aquila reached down to pick him up. Despite the fact he had killed many men with his yellowing fangs, he had been a father before and knew the best way to carry the child without harming him—he was gentle enough that the pup squirmed only initially, and this time out of a desire to be put down rather than out of pain. Gabriel carried him towards the bed he had claimed and there set him. A few strong licks cleared most of the blood off, for they were only surface deep—save one, which by its intricacy, he knew to be his daughter’s work. He ignored his daughter’s dramatics, looking over the child for any wounds besides the cuts. There were none, and the doggish boy settled at the now welcomed attention.

While the child grew distracted by this unfamiliar figure, Gabriel turned to face his daughter. Fury burnt in his eyes, both at her and at the dog she called a mate. Had he still been Aquila, neither of them would be allowed to remain. “Neither of you are to touch him again. He is my grandchild regardless of who his father is, and I’ll be damned if I let your mistakes harm him further.” Black ears rose, a reminder of his position—no longer in the clan, though the Causarius were honored above all, but as her father.

Talitha de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 03:30 PM

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Melodramatic as she was, the mental stress of trying to shun the child managed to break her down enough that everything stopped. She hadn't wanted to hurt him. She hadn't wanted anything to do with him. She'd had plans for him in the past, but without Caillen, there was no place for Cernunnos in her life. Ezekiel had ruined it. Padded palms pressed against her eyes as she listened to her father's orders that she and Cotl stay away, that he wouldn't let them hurt the boy further. Relief came over her. It'd been the right choice to take him to Gabriel, but there had been other options. With the death of the merle wolfdog, she'd wanted to do something else with the child.

"He needs to go to Alaine." Her words were spoken softer than usual, filled with grief at the thought that Alaine deserved anything from her life, but she knew the collie deserved it. After all, her son was dead, and it was the fault of the autumn princess and golden King. Only Talitha could make amends for what her brother had done, but she was willing if it meant her son would belong. "I can't take him to her. I can't face her again...but he belongs there, he needs to go to Alaine."

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Gabriel de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 03:38 PM

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Alaine. So, that was how it went. Gabriel’s body stiffened, his face full of unwelcomed shadows and things of which he could not speak. Ignorant of the crimes of his children until now, he faced them with resentment and selfish anger. It was because of them he had almost lost her. At least now he understood why. The wolfish man set his jaw and grappled the typhoon within himself. Years of practice had made him a rock; he was greater than any of those things that had come before him. His children were weak—Faolin’s blood had made them weak.

“I will take him,” Gabriel promised, his voice strangely hollow. “When he no longer needs your milk, I will take him. Until then, you are only to come here to feed him.” Through the open window, Gabriel heard the faint noise of two voices speaking in that odd foreign tongue. Good. Enkiel would be needed before the end of the night, to ensure that the scars would heal. “If I were you, I would be careful,” he went on, teeth gleaming as his lips pulled away from them. “I may not be able to hurt you, or that dog, but your brother is just as mad as you are.” Finally, he had said it aloud. Ezekiel was not mad in the way of others, like Samael, or even Haku, but his son was cursed by furies.

Talitha de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 03:53 PM

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Her features fell dull and gazed at the floor without emotion as Gabriel spoke in a similar sort of way. As if the oxygen had been sucked out of the air around her, she found it hard to breathe. She'd done something wrong, and again felt the sting of losing her father's love for it. He'd been right. She was like Faolin. She'd angered God. Halo had been right too. A tightness overtook her chest as he explained how the days would progress. She could hear her cousin, her only friend that remained in the land even over her brother, speaking with the strange woman who had come to reside in the guest house. It was better that Cern was there with them, instead of in his mother's care in the caverns where he couldn't be protected by her neglect.

It wasn't until he spoke about her brother that she regained some semblance of herself. Her body tensed and face twisted into outrage that he'd say such a thing about Ezekiel. "We're not crazy!" The barked words held little truth — she knew that she was wrong, but she firmly believed Ezekiel to be perfect as Gabriel once had been. How could he say such things about them when they'd been there for him over the years? Her anger didn't fade, but mixed with sorrow as the idea that he had been lying to her resurfaced. "You're wrong, Ezekiel loves me. He knows what I am and what I've done and he still loves me, even if you don't or can't or won't. I don't need you anymore. We don't need you anymore. We grew up without you."

She drew herself to her full height, red eyes kept away from him despite the confidence she tried to instill in herself. She was still his daughter, and she still submitted to him as she did to her brother despite her rank over him. "I'm sorry for what I did." For Caillen, for Cern, for Gabriel. The desire to throw herself into the sea arose once again as she realized what a monster she had become, but now she couldn't leave Ezekiel. Mad or not, she believed he needed her.

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Gabriel de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 04:22 PM

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Even as she turned on him, this thing that had once been his little girl, Gabriel watched her with the distance earned by enemies. She had attacked him once before, and it had been met without impasse. Again, he met her torrent, and again he remained unmoved. Talitha had proven she would fall to him. Even Ezekiel bowed yet.

This was why he felt nothing when she accused him of what he had been trying to do since they were children. A bond to parents made one weak. He was loyal to Kaena, but only so much. He was not fanatical, like Molochai had been, nor was he sick like Samael. Distance made for strength. If they did not need him, they would not hurt when he was gone. A brutal, savage idea, but one Gabriel had cultivated since the first war. The Kali’s had made Ezekiel both a warrior and soft; Andre and Dahlia de Mai had warped Talitha into a beast.

No trace of any emotional change passed on the black-brushed wolf. His whiskers curled away from his teeth. “Then look after your other children. I’ll keep him safe until I take him away, but the others are your responsibility. You’re the first to bear children; I want them to live.” A legacy, in its own way, would make him immortal.

Talitha de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 04:33 PM

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She picked at her bloody claws as she tried to rationalize what was happening. It was strange that she was turning over her eldest living child, a creature that she loved but did not want, into the hands of a woman she hated. Caillen's mother had received her venom in the past, furied words that had elicited a slap across her angular face. A slap that had sent Caillen into a rage. She had won the woman's child, but lost him as well, and it was her penance that she give up the boy who represented what she'd once had to the female she wished death on. It was better for him.

Everything returned to apathy and distress as her anger at her father's words faded into the background. His words were met with a stiff nod. Priest, Vermilion, they would be hers alone. She had already made that promise to their father, that she wanted nothing from him in the days following their birth. She had lied for what she received, and had been given monsters for the price of it. "I can't raise Cernunnos, what makes you think I'll do any better with Priest and Vermilion? If you couldn't do it, how can I? I'm so much less." Truth as she saw it. She couldn't care for them on her own, and Cotl would have nothing to do with them.

"Do you think Ezekiel will help me? Cotl won't. They aren't his, he wants them gone." She looked to him for guidance, crimson gaze filled with fear and hope that she could do what needed to be done to preserve her family line. That's all they were, an extension of Gabriel. Of the dead grandfather she had never met. There was no pride in being Talitha's children, but there was pride in being related to them.

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Gabriel de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 04:42 PM

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“I had to send you two away,” he said firmly, knowing in his heart that this was the truth. “A war is no place for children. You learned that.” Gentle, but a sharp reminder. She had been taught the cruelest lesson of all, his Gabriel’s eyes. The fact she had watched her rapist die under his jaws had been a bitter repentance. Some wounds never healed.

Lykoi would live forever, for Kaena had solidified her legacy by breeding so regularly. It was the line of his own blood—blood chosen by God—that he wished to keep intact. “God gave you these children when he took the others. If He believes you are ready, then you are ready.” Only, as he thought about Ezekiel, did a flicker of trepidation cross through his eyes. His son would aid her; of this he had no doubt. The power the red woman had over her twin was astonishing…and terrifying. He turned from her to nudge the pup away from the edge of the bed, earning a grunting whine in response.“Feed them and teach them what it is to be Inferni’s legacy,” he said over his shoulder, speaking a riddle archaic in its nature. “That is all you can do for them.”

Talitha de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 04:58 PM

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He spoke the truth, but it didn't ease the underlying hurt she felt that he hadn't appeared to desire to raise them himself. War had ruined her, as it had ruined so many things she felt were good. But it was wrong to continue to think about the past as she did, with such obsession that it continued to hurt what she could become. Andrezej had left her months before. Why did the war still haunt her? Haku had never been a shadow that followed her as he had been Gabriel's, but no longer did her uncle's golden eye stare back at her from the shadows. They were replaced with blue. A memory she had never stopped to think of.

She nodded again, having faith that Gabriel knew what he spoke of better than she ever could. God had killed the others but had given her these, the two who could be seen as monsters if she chose to release the truth of their lineage to the world. She watched as he turned to nudge her son back onto the bed, the little boy batting at the larger nose as he toppled slightly to the side. It was the right choice to send him away.

"I think God's forgiven me finally. Priest, he...has a marking on his face? Like the necklace you wear?" She knew what the cross was, but it felt wrong to describe her son's dark stripes in such a way if it wasn't truly such a thing. Perhaps it was an anomaly that would go away over time, but for now she clung to it with hope that her life would be better.

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Gabriel de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 05:06 PM

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Memories faded with time. Gabriel had forgotten the eyes of the wolf that had eaten his brother (eaten was the right word; the loner had taken chunks from the pup) and forgotten the fire in California. He remembered the last one, and he remembered the wars since that time. God had been right to purge them. Sodom had fallen, yes, but what of this new Gomorrah that had risen in its place? There would always be sickness, and always be men like Haku. It was a pity that he had not been fast enough to eradicate the Soul line. In his heart, he still wished to see it done.

A marking? Gabriel turned, his eyes narrowed. How peculiar to think that a child might bear the sign of the fallen son. “The Cross,” he said, not needing to look to know it was there. He had worn it since it had been found. The Man-Jesus had been made to suffer for the sins of his kind. Tortured, crucified, and killed only to walk through hell and return clean. Perhaps there was some magic in them yet. “If it his His mark, then you will know. God chooses his own.”

He had said that before.

A city, and the righteous and unjust alike, had burnt in the aftermath.

Talitha de le Poer · 08-18-2011, 05:22 PM

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PP'd Enkiel a little, and put in a Sa'adat action. >.> We can close, or keep it going, but it'd be Sa'adat rather than Talitha and that might be kinda pointless since she can't do much. XD

She remained outside of the room as he turned, finding approaching to be wrong. He had told her to stay away, and it was his space and not hers that her son lived in now, and there was no place for her to be in there with him. So she spoke of his brother from outside of the room, watching Cern as he tried to move across the top of the bed with uneasy, puppy steps that often sent him sprawling. Priest and Vermilion had not started to move. Their eyes hadn't opened. He was different in more ways than simply the fact that he looked strange.

"What if I do something wrong with him? What if I make him...wrong?" She didn't want her son and daughter to be like herself or her brother. They had to be better, to be heirs to her father's line when she and the King had failed in that respect. But he believed she was ready, and she put so much faith into his opinion that she had to believe it as well. Her head shook and she crossed her arms. "I'll send Enkiel in to...help Cern." It was time for her to go, and so she turned away without saying goodbye, making her way outside to send Enkiel in to tend to her son. She didn't bother to take the pups away from his patient, who watched with confused eyes as the princess took long strides across the mansion grounds in the direction of her brother's home.

When Enkiel went to tend to the spotted boy, Sa'adat followed, unsure of what to do with the squirming puppies in her arms.

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